10/30/2010

A quick rundown of how I’m planning to vote on Tuesday, with (brief) explanations instead of the usual 1000 word tomes.

Governor: Dale Ogden (L). Meg Whitman has spent a fortune failing to convince me that she can succeed at doing what Arnie promised to do. Jerry Brown is more responsible than any single other living politician for helping construct the state of California’s current framework of ungovernability. I reject them both, and am slightly more sympathetic to the Libertarians than to the Greens when I look for third party candidates.

Senator: Barbara Boxer (D). Carly Fiorina came into HP, failed to understand its corporate culture, the motivations of its employees, or what made it a great company, then proceded to change the company in ways which destroyed all three. There’s no good reason to believe she’d be any better in the Senate.

Lt. Governor: Abel Maldanado (R). Gavin Newsom is a spotlight-seeking political hack who managed to make the gay community in San Francisco love him while scoring a massive own goal for their side; then he proceeded to betray his closest friend (and prominent political aide) and his wife, simultaneously. Abel Maldanado is a socially moderate, pro-environment Republican who is willing to vote for compromise budgets. Given this choice, the answer is obvious.

Secretary of State: Debra Bowen (D). She came to office four years ago promising to restrict the use of unverifiable (and unsafe) electronic voting machines. She did so. She deserves re-election for the simple reason that she kept her primary campaign promise, with the result that elections in California are now more secure than they are in much of the country.

Attorney General: Steve Cooley (R). He’s a relatively nonpartisan conservative who supports modifying three strikes; his opponent ran a DA’s office which has been embroiled in a scandal involving the DA’s office not turning over impeachment evidence about cops with disciplinary records involving dishonesty. That was a fundamental failure of a basic job duty, and blaming it on the SFPD should not earn her a promotion.

Insurance Commissioner: why is this an elected office, again?

Superintendent of Public Education: all I know about this is that it’s shaped up to be a race between the candidate backed by the administration and the candidate backed by the teachers. Since I have no children in the public schools, I don’t follow public school politics enough to know more, so I’m inclined to not vote on it.

Assembly: Ray Bell (L). I voted against the Democrat in the primary for reasons involving local county politics (and because one of his opponents was one of the best candidates i’ve seen anywhere in a long time). He’s guaranteed a win in the general election, so I’m voting for a third party candidate to increase their visibility and numbers.

Congress: Anna Eshoo (D). I’m reasonably happy with her as a representative and don’t think any of her opponents will do a better job.

Proposition 19: Yes. It’s far from a perfect bill, but legalizing possession and growth of marijuana, and allowing some legalization of sale, is a step in the right direction. Aside from the (uncertain) situation with respect to corporate drug-free workplace policies, where I’m somewhat sympathetic to the danger that companies may be unable to comply with both this law and federal contracting regulations, my objections to Prop. 19 are that it doesn’t go far enough, not that it goes too fa.r

Proposition 20: No. I voted for the independent redistricting commission for the state legislature, two years ago; how about we give it a chance, and see how it works, before extending its power?

Proposition 21: No. This is tough: more money for parks (many of which were almost closed last year), tied to a minor increase in the vehicle license fee, balanced by free park admission – it’s a reasonable policy choice which I would vote for as a legislator. But I don’t like ballot-box budgeting; it makes the overall state budget problem worse.

Proposition 22: No. More ballot box budgeting. In a good cause, sure … but aren’t they always in a good cause?

Proposition 23: No. A temporary suspension might be in order (although even then, if we really believe that global warming is a problem that must be addressed, don’t we need to address it regardless of whether we’re in good economic times or not?). But this isn’t temporary: the trigger is a condition of extremely low unemployment … meaning the suspension may be indefinite.

Proposition 24: No. (1) Complicated tax policy is why we have a legislature. (2) I like some of the changes the measure would repeal while disliking others. (3) More ballot-box budgeting.

Proposition 25: Yes If a majority of the legislature can put together a budget which is balanced and which doesn’t require tax increases, they should be able to do so.

Proposition 26: No. Increasing the number of things which require a 2/3 majority vote, and simultaneously incresing the number of things which must be sent to the voters for a 2/3 majority vote, is a recipe for gridlock and further structural inflexibility, making it even harder for government to function than it already is.

Proposition 27: No. We voted to create this redistricting commission two years ago. Nothing has changed. How about we give it a try before repealing it?

10/29/2010

(The summary had been changed by court order, but the Fresno County registrar wasn’t keeping track of it, apparently, and so the ballots went out with a title and summary that a state court had ordered off the ballot).

“Fresno County is a county of significant size in California and in a close election, its vote, now tainted by this serious error, could call into question the state results and possibly give rise to an election contest and require a new statewide election on Proposition 23.” So says an attorney for the Yes-on-23 campaign. And she’s right: if state law requires a particular title and summary and a different one was provided on the ballot, it’s not even clear that the election results are valid.

I’m pretty forgiving of most human errors. But this one is inexcusable.

10/22/2010

Last week at a hearing for Major Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 in the Fort Hood attack, the New York Times could not determine a motive for the attack. The article, titled At Hearing on Fort Hood Attack, Few Clues, does present a compelling mystery.

A parade of prosecution witnesses — many of them still struggling with their wounds — provided a gripping, almost cinematic account of the attack in which 13 people died and dozens were wounded. Yet the gunman and his motive remain an enigma. And there were few clues about what sort of defense Major Hasan, a 40-year-old Army psychiatrist, would mount in the face of such overwhelming evidence.

See if you can find any clues that the Times reporter may have missed…

[M]ore than two dozen other soldiers and civilians spoke under oath about their struggle to survive in the terrifying minutes after he yelled “Allahu akbar!” — “God is great” in Arabic — and started shooting.

Hmmm … What would Sherlock Holmes think?

Over three days, more than two dozen witnesses at the hearing described how Major Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar!” and then opened fire with a laser-guided handgun at a crowd of soldiers as they waited to see medical staff members before deployment.

Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Major Hasan, a Muslim whose parents immigrated from the West Bank, fired first at a crowded waiting area, then he walked around and shot soldiers as they tried to hide under desks, chairs and tables, only pausing to reload and saying nothing after his first outburst, several witnesses said.

Please send any tips that could help determine the motive to New York Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr.

* * * * *

This latest instance of media mystification at the motives for terrorist attacks recalls previous examples:

Also, I would like to say a few words regarding Alex and his “Libertarianism”. Alex and those like him are why libertarianism has a bad name. He uses the excuse of personal liberty to validate his perversions, much like those who claim to hold libertarian ideals because they don’t like paying taxes and want heroin to be legal.

The idea of “Personal Liberty” includes the notion – often ignored by many – that your actions do not infringe on the liberties of others. That is to say, you can go ahead and do hits of ecstasy, but you aren’t allowed to drop it in the drink of the inattentive girl at a frat party so that you can get her in the mood. While many might debate at what age someone is capable of giving real and informed consent regarding sexual acts, there are certain ages that are agreed to be “too young” and Alex likes them within that “too young” range. There is also the ignored fact that, regardless of what a Libertarian might think, the laws on the books are the laws on the books – just because you think it should be perfectly legal to snort some blow off the ass of a hooker, it is still illegal to do so (for so many different reasons).

Alex Knepper is no sort of libertarian (big OR small “L”). He’s just a garden-variety pervert, and should be treated as such.

And so, having done my good deed for the decade, I again depart this blog. This was, as I had said, not a home-coming. This was a short stop to make sure a pervert got all the exposure possible, along with his apologist employer. That goal having been accomplished, I will no longer remain.

This post contains disturbing, graphic, uncensored descriptions of sex acts with children. The authors made the decision to present all the evidence as-is, and I have to admit that I agree with them. I have retained everything in the post, .gifs, images, words and all. This needs to be seen and read by everyone.

I know that it’s a wall of text and images, but it needs to be read and seen.

So see it. Read it. And become disgusted.

Note the second: No, this is not my return to the blog. This is me, wanting to make sure that this gets every ounce of attention it possibly can.

And now, our feature presentation.

——————————————————

“Keep it up, you little pissant. I’ll make it further than you ever will because I’m the same in private as I am in public.”

The sexual exploitation of children is an almost unimaginable horror, abetted by the insidious online movement to paint pedophilia as just another puritan taboo. It should be just as unimaginable that a prominent public intellectual would allow this evil to fester in the conservative movement, but that is precisely what former Bush administration speechwriter David Frum does each time he renews his support of former NewsReal Blog contributor Alex Knepper.

Knepper’s disgusting views on sex have been thoroughlydocumented in posts we have written here at NewsReal Blog. We have contacted Frum three times to present evidence of Knepper’s degeneracy. In response, he snidely brushed off our documentation, instead focusing his protege’s energy on how to “fight the crazy right.” Never has Frum condemned any of this previously-disclosed material.

On September 20 RedState‘s Lexington_Concord wrote an excellent post summarizing Knepper’s pro-pedophile views and our resulting conflict with FrumForum. And yet, this story still hasn’t gotten the attention it warrants. There’s a young conservative writer on the rise– published at Big Hollywood, NewsBusters, and the Daily Caller, and personally supported by former National Review columnist and former American Enterprise Institute fellow David Frum — and he’s a defender of pedophilia. (When this post’s new material was brought to the attention of Big Hollywood and Andrew Breitbart they quickly committed to not publishing Knepper anymore. NewsBusters made the same commitment, going as far as deleting Knepper’s account. We have not yet heard back from Daily Caller but if it wants to make a similar public statement after reading this post it is invited to do so. We note that it’s been a week since Knepper’s last Daily Caller post — whereas in the same period he has published four posts at Frum Forum — perhaps the team at Editor-In-Chief Tucker Carlson’s publication already discovered the previous posts on this controversy and made the responsible decision to terminate their professional relationship. Kudos to them.)

After reading the remainder of this post, David Frum will no longer be able to smugly turn a blind eye to his protege’s depravity. Knepper’s Internet footprints extend well beyond the conservative blogosphere, and there is no shortage of proof that his defenses of pedophiles and rapists are not merely intellectual exercises, but pleas for validation of his own evil impulses.

Here’s more from the young blogger Alex Knepper whom the folks at NewsRealBlog published for months … but fired as a sex pervert and all-around lying maniac after he offered a post criticizing Ann Coulter. You can see just the kind of dangerous fiend he is too.

It is apparent that Frum considers Knepper an intellectual apostate in his own image, a delightful provocateur whose pot-stirring might someday attract a bit of Web traffic. Frum is too invested in his fetishization of heterodoxy to admit that only a degenerate would spend this much time advocating on behalf of sex offenders, downplaying the severity of rape, and peddling the same arguments as outfits like the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). But like many sex offenders and their supporters, Knepper’s repugnant strategy is to defang his perversions by taking them out of the moral realm and into the intellectual arena, dragging conservatives like Frum along with him.

Before publishing further defenses of Knepper, Frum will want to review his protege’s posting history at GayTeenForum.org in which the “young blogger” demonstrates beyond dispute his sexual attraction to adolescent boys. No pharmacy stocks a more powerful emetic than these posts. We have chosen to present all the relevant evidence that we have uncovered. Again: this material is disturbing and explicit.

First, it is necessary to establish conclusively that the alias “lostpainting” at Gay Teen Forum belongs to Knepper. This can be done by visiting the first link which we found unlocking this perverted secret stash.

Later in this Gay Teen Forum thread, Knepper provides further evidence of his identity by expressing his frustration about blogging at NRB:

They rejected all but the most asinine, cliched posts. Of course they rarely generated any traffic. I’m glad to be rid of the site; it’s one of those Obama-is-a-socialist-fanatic sites. I’m usually one of the top traffic-generators everywhere I write — when I wrote for Race42008, I was a top contributor; at FrumForum, my posts generate way more comments on average than almost anyone’s posts besides Frum’s own; at the Eagle, I was far and away the most popular columnist. I have learned from this that working for mindlessly partisan sites is really, really, really not the way for me to go.

In our investigation we also began to see the evidence of our worst fears coming true. In answer to forum member “Milo” asking whether or not he actually was a pervert, Knepper confessed that he would have sex with the underage Bieber if given the chance:

Not in the I-want-to-fuck-a-ten-year-old sense. Sixteen-year-olds like Justin Bieber? Maybe.

As you’ll soon see, this claim of Knepper’s that he is uninterested in prepubescent boys — that he is merely an “ephebophile” (someone interested primarily in 13-16 year old adolescents, as though that’s not just as evil) — is simply not credible.

In the past, I’ve written with NewsRealBlog (left on unfriendly terms — they had a problem with me), Rightosphere.com/Race42008.com (left on friendly terms — was time to move on), and the American University Eagle (infamously — left on friendly terms — but I had a problem with them). I’ve guest-blogged on some sites, too, such as Newsbusters.org. I have a standing offer at Hip Hop Republican that I may take up sometime. I’ve also been quoted in most major news sources (NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, US News & World Report, C-SPAN, etc).

Those who are still unconvinced can see a picture of “lostpainting” in his underwear here. It’s obviously Knepper.

Last piece of evidence. Note the AIM instant messenger handle that Knepper includes on his Facebook bio. It’s “lostpainting4″:

The preferred terminology of Knepper and his Gay Teen Forum associates for attractive children they want to victimize is “CHILF.” This is a variant of the more well-known term “MILF,” popularized by the teen sex comedy “American Pie.” A “MILF” is an attractive older woman, a so-called “Mom I’d Like to F—.” Thus, a “CHILF” is a “Child I’d Like to F—.” In this thread Knepper posts his own version of the 12 Days of Christmas translated into pedophile pornography:

“Pooler” is another member of the forum who from our research appears to share Knepper’s preference for young boys. “Daniel” seems to be a forum member who was 16 when this ode was posted (he has since changed his handle to “Vortex.”) And “Dylicious” is a very young looking (but legal) member of the forum.

This is the most disturbing item we discovered as it features Knepper confessing to a sex act with someone who might be below the age of consent. (We really have no way of knowing for certain yet.) If you want to give Knepper the benefit of the doubt — a practice we no longer do — then you could say that someone being “chilfy” means he only looks like a child.

Chilfy called me last night at fucking 3 in the morning, 5 hours into my earlier-than-usual sleep. He said he wanted me to fuck him. Now, I was still tired and woozy, but I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. So I drove over and got him.

10 minutes after that, we’re naked and I can’t fucking get it up. I just want to go back to sleep. I don’t even feel like sucking dick. I’m just…tired. I try and try and it comes up here and there but we fail at getting it into his ass.

So, we leave without getting off. He tried to fuck me but his dick was way too fucking big, especially for my tired, not-that-aroused self.

So I just drove him back at 5:00. -___-;

He said that tonight he’s having sex with a girl and he might want to go out with her and he doesn’t like to cheat. So I might lose my chilf.

He didn’t look very chilfy last night, though; he hadn’t shaven…he was all hairy. That made it more difficult to get turned on…boo.

Oh well.

Let it be known to not have sex when you’ve been awoken from a deep sleep. You can’t force yourself to be horny.

Note the line where Knepper confesses that because his sexual partner had not shaved he looked older — and that made getting sexually aroused more difficult. This is critical evidence that Knepper longs for prepubescent boys.

“Pedo-y” referring to pedophile, of course. Knepper elaborates on his fantasy:

The hilarious part was when I pulled down his briefs his dick was really tiny like a child’s. It was like, 2 inches hard. I was like Rylan this is so weird this feels so wrong, but he’s like — I’m sorry, I’m such a tiny person all around! And I sucked him off anyway. Was sooooooooooooo fuckin pedo

This is a naked confession of a desire to engage in sexual acts with prepubescent boys whose genitals are “really tiny like a child’s.” Responding to a query about whether he woke up having ejaculated, Knepper responds:

No but I did feel really horny and had to go jerk off to some chilfs

Later in the thread Knepper again opens the door for others to reasonably assume that he has had sex with underage boys before:

In the dream he told me that he was 15, and I gave myself the green light to suck him since I’d already decided I was good to go after James (Dr. Dillamond). Either way it’s totally societally inappropriate but still hilarious.

Not morally wrong, not exploitative to intentionally seek out someone younger and more vulnerable. Just “societally inappropriate.” In other words, Knepper believes his views on sexual consent are superior to those forced upon him by an unenlightened society. Having sex with a 15-year-old isn’t predatory in Knepper’s book, it just clashes with the prudish social mores that cramp his style.

We can’t link to this Gay Teen Forum thread titled “The Cutest CHILFs” because it has been deleted by forum administrators. The likely reason will be clear when you view the following screen capture of two seemingly naked boys embracing. It provides our most visually shocking evidence of Knepper’s predilection for underage boys. We have only altered the screen capture to obscure the faces of what appear to be pre-adolescent boys.

And just a reminder from another post by Knepper that has since been deleted: a CHILF is someone under the age of 18.

Simply failing to condemn a thread about pursuing teenage victims is damning enough. The entire notion that those with pedophilic tendencies are unfairly persecuted by a cold, judgmental world is preposterous and repellent. But Knepper didn’t just contribute to this discussion – he started it:

Seriously. It’s rather annoying to drool over David Archuleta or something — who is 18 but looks cute and boyish — and have someone be like “Ew pedo, he’s like 12,” but someone else my age (19) might be into someone who’s goddamn 40 years old and no one thinks that’s odd.

Here, again, we see evidence of the mental gymnastics required to find an attraction to CHILFs morally equivalent to an attraction to older men. And then Knepper goes one step further, explaining that he doesn’t just find young looking men appealing, he lusts after minors. A forum member asks:

Are your real life friends and acquaintances aware you lust for minors and have a diaper fetish. Actual question.

Knepper admits:

Lol they are aware of my chilf-lust but not my fetishes.

Three observations here:

1. “Chilf-lust” is not some sort of inborn orientation toward children or adolescents. It is the desire to prey upon the most vulnerable among us.

2. Knepper sees “chilf-lust” as more socially acceptable than a diaper fetish.

3. Knepper’s friends are apparently willing to look the other way when he expresses his desire to exploit minors.

Thread #9: What’s the Main Cause of Pedophilia?

Not only are children sexual objects to Knepper, he thinks child rape is funny. “What’s the Main Cause of Pedophilia?” asks Knepper in another since-deleted post as he sets up for the punchline: “Sexy kids.”

10/4/2010

There is now a whole generation of California voters who do not remember Governor Moonbeam or that we were all so happy to see the last of him back in ’82. It has been 28 years since Brown was Governor, which means that most voters under 35 view it as ancient history.

I do remember it, and I’d dearly love to avoid repeating it.

The first vote I ever cast was against Jerry Brown in 1974, in the battle to succeed Ronald Reagan as California’s governor. It wasn’t that I liked the Republican (Houston Flournoy, a boring suit) but that I disliked the glib, pandering, moralistic, green, right-brain candidacy of Jerry Brown. Brown, the 37-year-old son of the guy Reagan beat in 1966, was running an anti-corporation populist campaign to bring counter-culture values to Sacramento.

He won, and proceeded in 8 short years to wreck the state.

Brown’s legacy:

A 15-year halt in freeway construction. It wasn’t until 1990 that California began to expand its freeway system once again, but the state has never caught up with rising demand. The ongoing economic cost of chronic congestion plays a large role in California’s fiscal imbalance. This is ironic because Jerry got into politics with the help of his father “Pat” Brown, the man who built California’s infrastructure by sheer force of will. Nobody ever called Pat Brown “Moonbeam.”

The effective end of the death penalty in California. Not only did Brown veto several death penalty laws after the US Supreme Court withdrew its moratorium, but even after an initiative overwhelmingly passed, he did everything possible to prevent its provisions from being carried out.

The Rose Bird Court. When Brown left office he had appointed 6 of the 7 Justices on the California Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Rose Bird. In the 1960’s, the California court was widely regarded as one of the finest state supreme courts in the country. But the court that Jerry Brown left was anything but. It was particularly known for its pro-criminal sentiments. During her term in office, Rose Bird voted to vacate, overturn or remand every death penalty case that came before her. If that was not possible, the case languished on the docket for years. In every case where “civil rights” conflicted with criminal law, the criminals won. In one famous case the Court ruled that a fleeing burglar had a right to expect that his abandoned car – filled with loot from his crimes – was off limits to police until they got a warrant. The court’s decision said that the car was not abandoned, just “temporarily left” and the thief had an expectation of privacy. In 1986, Bird and two other justices were removed by the electorate, the first time any Supreme Court justice had failed confirmation.

Public Employee Unions. In 1978, Jerry Brown signed the bill that allowed collective bargaining by public employee unions in California. This is probably the single worst thing any Governor of California has done or ever will do. Instead of Civil Service employees trading low pay for job security and an assured pension, we now have a runaway budget that is built in for the next 40 years. It is not at all clear if this can be solved without state bankruptcy, since these union contracts have been written with union stooges on both sides of the table for decades. And now Jerry wants to solve it. This is like the guy who steals your wallet then helps you look for it. Anyone want to bet the solution isn’t higher taxes?

The California Gerrymander. In 1981, the Democrat-controlled legislature passed a marvel of gerrymandering. The Burton Plan, as it was known, gave the Democrats lopsided control of the statehouse in a way that proved impervious to popular vote. It was so one-sided that the plan was subjected to a statewide referendum, and lost. However the Democrats simply arranged for a slightly different plan to pass again, this time as an emergency bill. Brown signed it, even though it was clearly just the same rejected plan with a few tweaks. Again petitions went out for a referendum, which would have again succeeded, but the Rose Bird Court ruled that emergency measures were immune to Referendum and the Burton Plan became law. In 1986, this and other gerrymanders left Democrats with a large majority in Congress despite a tie in the cumulative Congressional vote.

A long history of “campaign reform” laws that have had no effect whatsoever in preventing political corruption, but have been remarkably effective in hampering challengers to incumbent officials. Maybe next time it will be different.

An anti-business climate that started with Brown’s first campaign and continues to this day. In all his roles, from Secretary of State to Governor to Attorney General, Brown has been unremittingly hostile to corporations and business, pretending to champion the “consumer” and common man. As if you can have all those consumers happily employed with no businesses left to employ them.

California is in real trouble. Serious life-threatening trouble. And the guy most responsible for getting us in that predicament now wants to be Governor again.

We have one candidate who has taken a nothing startup and put it in the Fortune 500. She knows how to get things done and is no one’s fool. We have another whose major accomplishments in life are 1) being a former Governor’s son, and 2) guiding the Golden State into a ditch.

And what are we all talking about? Some nonsense about a maid. If we elect Brown again, we will only have ourselves to blame.